40 patients and staff in TB scareFrom: By Kate JonesNovember 30,...

40 patients and staff in TB scare
From:
By Kate Jones

November 30, 2005

FORTY patients and medical staff face an anxious wait to learn whether they have been infected with tuberculosis.

Austin Hospital began testing patients and staff after a student nurse was diagnosed last week with the lung disease.
The female nurse had been working in the hospital's surgical ward, 8 East, for four weeks before her infection was detected.

The hospital's director of infectious diseases, Prof Lindsay Grayson, said the nurse had contact with patients while she was at the hospital for a training program between October 31 and November 22.

But he urged anyone experiencing tuberculosis symptoms - such as persistent coughing, high fever and night sweats - to contact the hospital's infectious diseases department.

The hospital has alerted 19 patients, 16 student nurses and five nurses who may be at risk of tuberculosis.



They will have skin and blood tests and X-rays, and should know within a week if they have been infected.
But Prof Grayson said it was unlikely that anyone would have been infected.

"These people aren't at major risk. There's no need to panic," he said. "It's a very unusual event that someone is positive because Australia has one of the lowest rates of tuberculosis in the world."

Prof Grayson said the nurse was screened for infections by the hospital in the first week of her placement. Her skin test showed she had been exposed to tuberculosis but the infection was likely to be dormant, he said.

Subsequent chest X-rays were negative and she was allowed to continue working.

But when she developed a cough last week, a phlegm test was carried out and tuberculosis was confirmed.

Prof Grayson said the hospital followed Department of Human Services guidelines in allowing her to work.

But Opposition health spokesman David Davis said the decision had put patients at risk.

"It is a major breach of the Government's prevention program to have a health worker with TB in contact with vulnerable hospital patients," he said.

The nurse, who has not been named, is being treated in an isolated ward and is expected to make a full recovery.

The disease is treated with antibiotics and patients are likely to be in hospital for two weeks. Last year, 360 cases of TB were reported.

TB is a chronic disease involving destruction of tissue, which damages the lungs.

Anyone with tuberculosis symptoms should contact their doctor or call Austin Health's Infectious Diseases Department on 9496 6676.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17411769-1243,00.html